


Not My Wheelhouse (I'm Trying Anyways)

by ncfan



Series: Legendarium Ladies April [28]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (early), Bechdel Test Pass, First Age, Gen, Gondolin, Gondolin Week, POV Female Character, Slice of Life, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril, legendarium ladies april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 04:37:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18403235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: Aredhel did try to carve out a place for herself in Gondolin, no matter how ill she might have felt it suited her.





	Not My Wheelhouse (I'm Trying Anyways)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gondolin Week; posting it a bit early, but eh. Also serves as an entry for Legendarium Ladies April.

It had rained that morning, and clear water had pooled in some of the deeper depressions in the flagstones (always on the footpaths; Turgon had been very firm when insisting that all roads intended for use by horses or carts must have paving as even as possible), carving out pieces of the sky to serve as their reflections. The pale, icy blue of spring was dotted with clouds that might, in a few hours, turn to pure white, but for now were still tinted with gray, on a gradient of platinum to slate. This day, at least, the rains had not blanketed Gondolin with the humidity that the city it so resembled had often been afflicted with after rain. That was one thing Aredhel did not miss about Tirion—the days when the air was so thick with moisture that she had felt as though she was trying to breathe water, and not air. Instead, she was comforted by a cool, misty breeze as she made her way down the footpaths.

Sometimes, Aredhel wished her brother had not been so insistent on constructing Gondolin to resemble Tirion as closely as it did. Oh, it was hardly as if the city was an exact replica; even with all of the architects who had made the journey here from Nevrast, that would likely have been impossible. But the architectural style of Gondolin was just the same as Tirion had been. Nevrast had shown some outside influences, but those had all been left by the wayside when she and her brother had taken their people and left for Tumladen like thieves in the night. Down to the exact angle of a bridge and the exact shape of a window, Gondolin’s architectural style was the twin of Tirion’s, and walking the streets sometimes left Aredhel feeling a touch disoriented. As if she was returned again to Aman, but everything had changed while she was gone, and the people she had once known were now replaced with strangers.

It was ridiculous to be ruled by such feelings, however, and Aredhel did not let them keep her confined to the palace, staring out of high windows like some sighing maiden out of one of the pulp novels that one publishing house in Tirion was always setting out. She had too many things she had to do to indulge in something like that.

The guildhalls of Gondolin were scattered across the upper and lower commercial districts, tucked away between the three residential districts. When the city plans were being drawn up, there had been a furor about which guild would have space where; Aredhel had found the whole thing frankly ridiculous, to be honest, but everyone else took it very seriously. There were some who felt that placement should be assigned based on the social station of the head of a particular guild; others felt that the prestige of the guild should be the deciding factor; still more insisted on the profitability of the industry in question being given preference.

On and on the debates had gone, growing ever more heated as time wore on. Aredhel had had the dubious pleasure of being present during one meeting in which the head of the glassmakers’ guild and the head of the chandlers’ guild had gotten into a fist fight over the matter. After remanding the combatants to a night in custody and sending everyone else (sans Aredhel) out of the tent, Turgon had put his head in his hands and groaned. Aredhel had clapped his shoulder and pointed out that at least they hadn’t drawn knives.

_“That isn’t much of a comfort, Írissë.”_

_“…This is all completely ridiculous.”_

_“Yes, it is. They take it very seriously, though._ ”

And as far as Aredhel was concerned, what had been ridiculous then was still ridiculous now. What was ridiculous now would remain ridiculous in the future, unto the end of time. She had never been much of a politician, in any sense of the word, and though leadership had come up on her almost unawares, politicking was still a language that was altogether foreign to her.

Her path today led her towards one of the guildhalls, regardless. But this was a more personal call than all that, so perhaps it wouldn’t carry her too far out of her wheelhouse.

The sericulture guild had been awarded a placement in the upper commercial district, which, if Aredhel remembered correctly, had not passed without protest. Protest had come not just from the other guilds (the glassmakers’ guild had been especially vociferous), but from the head of the guild herself. Elhedril had tried to insist on a place in the lower commercial district for her guild’s hall, but by then the lower district was full, and she was allotted a place in the upper district instead. Aredhel had never quite understood what Elhedril’s problem with a more prestigious spot had been, but perhaps her visit to the guildhall today would dispel that mystery.

Aredhel emerged from an alley onto a wide street. Some of the buildings were so familiar that for a moment Aredhel expected to see a gold sky, rather than a blue one. The moment passed, her unease subsided, and she strode forward.

One would have likely not expected the building Aredhel approached to be the sericulture guild’s hall. It was, for all that it was a large building, considerably less imposing than many of the other guildhalls in Gondolin. It had two stories, the stone of the building simply white-washed, and not painted any other color. Even the main entranceway was fairly unimposing; the oaken doors were polished, but otherwise unadorned. It rather befit Elhedril; Aredhel knew the woman would never have stood for the sort of frippery some of the other guildhalls had used in their construction.

Aredhel had never seen the sericulture guildhall in Tirion—or, if she had, she could no longer remember the sight of it. She wondered briefly, before pressing on inside, just how closely this guildhall resembled that one.

The reception area of the guildhall was empty of people. Sunlight flowed smoothly over the floor tiles painted black and white in a hexagonal pattern. The chairs set up by the windows no the right hand side were a little crooked, leaving Aredhel to wonder just how many visitors the hall saw.

Before she could ponder anything further, one of the doors into the inner part of the hall swung open, and when the Elda who emerged from that doorway caught sight of Aredhel, their eyes lit up with something that veered between surprise and panic.

“Oh, Lady Aredhel! I’m so sorry, there’s nothing in our schedule about your—“

Aredhel held up a hand. “This isn’t a scheduled visit. Will you go to Elhedril, and tell her I’m here?”

“Right away.”

Barely a minute after that ( _someone_ was moving quickly, though Aredhel wasn’t sure who; maybe both, the door swung open again, and Elhedril emerged from within. She tossed a thick apron she had been wearing backwards to the Elda who had first found Aredhel and grinned, striding forward to clap Aredhel’s arm. “Never expected to see you in a place like this.”

Aredhel smirked in turn. “Never expected to see you running the sericulture guild. The last I checked, you were mad for _hunting_ , not silk.”

“It was my family’s trade,” Elhedril said with a shrug, “and it’s hardly as if there’s any hunting to be had in the vale.”

Aredhel felt a pang deep in her stomach. “No, there is not.”

Silence settled over them for a few moments, only deepened by the Elda who had taken Elhedril’s apron shutting the door behind them as they retreated back inside. Then, Elhedril squeezed her shoulder and nodded towards a side door. “Come on, this isn’t any place to have a conversation.”

Motion unstopped Aredhel’s voice. “I’ve heard you’ve been having some troubles here.”

A sound halfway between a laugh and a huffy sigh escaped Elhedril’s mouth as they mounted a narrow, sunlit stairwell. “Oh, I’m having troubles, alright. One of them’s unfolding in the workshop right now. I’d show you—you’d probably think it was funny—but I wouldn’t want to dirty your clothes. You always wear so much white.”

“I’m fond of it, Elhedril. I heard you were having other troubles?” Aredhel pressed.

Elhedril’s back was turned to her, but Aredhel could still easily make out the wince that shivered down her back. “We can talk about that in my office, Aredhel. The guildsmen are pessimistic enough as it is; I don’t think they’d take too well to me speaking of it out in the open.”

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. Aredhel raised an eyebrow, curiosity piqued, but didn’t press further, not just yet. All would be revealed soon enough.

“Here we are,” Elhedril announced, as she pushed open the door to her office. “My workspace and sometimes sleep-space. In all its disheveled glory.”

‘Disheveled was an excellent word to describe the state of Elhedril’s office. The desk was in excellent condition—gleaming red wood that looked like mahogany—but it was all but lost under a sea of papers and quills and books. There were yet more books strewn haphazardly across shelves in the back of the room. A cot was set up in the back left-hand corner, sheets in disarray, and there was a sturdy-looking trunk tucked underneath.

Aredhel drank in all of this and laughed. “This is _exactly_ how I would have expected an office of yours to look.”

“As if you’d be any better.” But there was no malice in Elhedril’s voice, and it was with a smile on her face that she made a sweeping gesture around the room. “Take a seat anywhere you can find one. Just be careful of any ink.”

The thin mattress of the cot squealed as Aredhel settled her weight upon it—Elhedril’s back must be in absolute agony if she slept on this thing on a regular basis. And perhaps in deference to that, Elhedril sat instead in her desk chair, sighing as she pressed her back to the cushion. “I have spent too long on my feet,” she muttered to herself, before fixing a more serious gaze on Aredhel, her dark eyes glinting. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors, then.”

“Nothing too particular. Just something about how the entire guild is going to collapse any day now, which _I_ thought sounded far-fetched.”

Elhedril drummed her fingers on a small patch of clear space on her desk. “A bit far-fetched, yes, though we are certainly hurting.”

Aredhel frowned. “What’s wrong? Everything’s been going so smoothly since the city was built.”

Very smoothly, and Aredhel couldn’t decide whether she liked it or not. She had no desire to ever revisit the sour tension of the Unrest in Aman, nor the hostility that had plagued the Exiles’ first shared years in Beleriand. She had no desire to go back to a time when she wondered every day if her people would war with one another. If they never went back to that, it would be too soon.

But she had found some level of fulfillment in the role she had taken on during their years by the shores of Lake Mithrim. They’d not had safety there, but it had been Aredhel’s first real taste of leadership (she had never regarded the Helcaraxë as really counting), and it had been exhausting, but in retrospect, it had also been, well. Fulfilling.

Gondolin was a different beast altogether. The more time wore on, the more Aredhel preferred the beast Mithrim had been.

“It’s…” Elhedril ran her teeth over her lower lip, slowly. “How much do you know about silk production, Aredhel?” she asked abruptly.

Another frown spasmed on Aredhel’s mouth. It struck her suddenly how quiet it was in the building. “Not much. I know you obtain silk from the silkworm’s cocoon, and that the silkworms feed on mulberry leaves. That’s why you planted that mulberry orchard down in the vale, isn’t it?”

“Hmm, yes, and here is where the problems start. Aredhel, do you remember what the winters in Tirion were like?”

“Vividly. It snowed maybe once every twenty years, and rained profusely the other nineteen. It never grew cold enough most years to—“ Realization struck her. “ _Oh_.”

Elhedril nodded gloomily. “ _Oh_. A few of the guild members know the right charms, but it’s still been hard going, keeping the trees healthy in winter. They’re cold-tolerant to some extent, but winters in Gondolin are on another level entirely from winters in Tirion. This past winter was especially bad; we actually lost a few of the trees.

“But no matter the difficulties we’ve having with the trees, they’re nothing on the absolute _nightmare_ that has been the task of keeping the silkworms alive in winter.”

“How did you get them across the Helcaraxë? Can’t you employ that method here; the winters aren’t as cold as the Helcaraxë was.” And she prayed she would never endure that sort of gnawing cold again.

“We _didn’t_. They started dying, and then we beat them to the punch and ate them instead; this was around when we started running out of food. The silkworms we have now are the ones the Fëanárians took with them. One of your cousins made their sericulture guild give their silkworms to us as a peace offering.”

“That was likely Maitimo,” Aredhel said, nodding firmly. “None of the other six would have thought to make such a gesture.”

“I doubt it endeared him overmuch to his craftsmen. And whoever it was, they may have given us their silkworms, but they can’t keep them from suffering and dying in the cold.” Elhedril’s hand lit on a particular piece of paper on her desk; she glared down at it before returning her gaze to Aredhel’s face. “The charms we use to keep the silkworms from dying in winter seem to be growing less effective with each passing year, and they weren’t entirely effective to start with. We’ve tried taking them into the guildhall and feeding them with leaves we preserved for the winter, but it’s not a permanent solution, and I’d be lying if I said they were truly _thriving_ in here.”

Aredhel wished she knew a little more about botany or insects, if only so she could help Elhedril in this. “There must be something you can do, surely.” Alas, she knew little about botany, beyond what plants found growing wild were safe to eat, and the same went for insects.

“There is something.” But Elhedril’s face didn’t brighten any. “Gondolin already has its share of hothouses, the better to keep on growing food during the winter.”

“Not just food. One of them grows flowers and herbs. I would never have thought we could grow rosemary here, especially not after what Artanis told me about it, but we have plenty to go around.”

“Yes,” Elhedril said slowly. “I… don’t know that it’s ever been attempted, not by the Ñoldor, at any rate—Gliril says she saw some very large hothouses in Valmar when she visited it last, but she didn’t go close enough to them to see what was being grown inside—but we think that it may be possible to build a hothouse large enough to grow mulberry trees in. It would require either a single, huge hothouse, or several smaller, but still _very_ large hothouses.”

Elhedril scrubbed her brow. “And here we run into yet more problems. The first is that we’d have to go before the zoning board and convince them to allot space to us. I have no idea how long that would take. The second one is that building the hothouse or hothouses will require a truly massive amount of glass, and the charms needed to keep them from cracking or breaking due to cold or mishandling, and that means—“ she paused, and the flat stare she directed Aredhel’s way could not have looked more tired or less enthusiastic than if it was being given by a corpse “—that means going to the glassmakers’ guild.”

“Ah.” Aredhel winced. “Is… Is Mormeril still very sore over having to build her hall in the lower district?”

“Huh, she was the last time I spoke to her, and it’s not just that. She was passed over for the same sort of placement in Vinyamar as well, and I think having it happen twice in a row has left a… it’s left a very particular impression.” Elhedril sank back even further into her chair, staring moodily up at the ceiling. “And, well, we’re the Ñoldor. We can be a petty lot. We often _are_ a petty lot. I don’t know that I could convince her to help me, and even if some of her subordinates were willing to take the contract, if I went around her, I _know_ Mormeril would quash it before it could get anywhere.”

“I can help you, there.” The words were not out of Aredhel’s mouth before she could think. She liked to think she had grown more careful than all that. “I can speak to Mormeril for you, if you wish.”

Elhedril’s gloomy eyes lit up. “Would you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was firmer now. “I can’t do it right now; Mormeril’s leading a party back to Nevrast for more sand.”

Bitter laughter filled the air. “This, I know. I thought I’d go down to her guildhall to get the groveling started early, and found her missing.”

“It’s going to be a while before she returns, too. But when she does, I’ll speak to her. You just focus on the zoning board for now.”

Another spate of laughter, though somewhat less bitter than the last. “Thank you, Aredhel.” She looked down at her desk, entertaining a small, unenthusiastic smile on her face. “You know, things were much simpler when we were still living in Mithrim.”

“Yes,” Aredhel said quietly, as she left the room, “they were.”

-0-0-0-

The royal library of Gondolin was not as impressive as its counterpart in Tirion had been, not by a longshot. Of course, there had been those among Turgon and Aredhel’s people who had enough knowledge of books not on hand to reconstruct them, and of course there had been divisions amongst the hosts of Fingolfin and his children where the books were concerned, but these things did not balance each other out, and the scale tipped more towards empty than full. Not just because of the books claimed by Aredhel’s father or oldest brother, either.

Aredhel was never the voracious reader Turgon or certain of their cousins were, are. She enjoyed reading when she was in the mood for it, but she didn’t pick up a book every day of her life, every time she had a spare moment. Nevertheless, she had spent enough time around people who were of that disposition that she appreciated the true value of a book.

Aredhel understood the true value of a book, and thus, she had hardly been one of the first to voice the idea of burning books for fuel, when they had been freezing on the Helcaraxë and kindling was in short supply. She had actually vocally opposed the idea, if only because she was half-convinced Turgon would drop on the spot if someone burned one of his books, from horror if nothing else. But they had started having to burn those books by close to the end of the icy road to Beleriand, and though they had managed to reach Beleriand before burning too many of those books, there was still knowledge contained within that had been lost to the Exiles unto the end of time, if the Valar had anything to say about it.

The idea of that lost knowledge was what currently plagued Aredhel, as she combed through the royal library for information on sericulture, and managed to come away with but one book to occupy her.

This really wasn’t the sort of thing she would ever have imagined herself doing when she was still living in Aman. Or Mithrim. Or Vinyamar, for that matter. And even in Gondolin, it was the sort of thing that didn’t sit well on Aredhel’s shoulders. It didn’t quite fit over her skin, didn’t feel natural. She hoped that she could banish that feeling if she threw herself into it enthusiastically enough. She wasn’t going to last here for very long if she couldn’t.

The book on sericulture she had found was a rather thin tome, too. Maybe, Aredhel thought discontentedly, as she took a seat at one of the windows, pressing her back against the stone wall rather than the cushions, she should have asked Elhedril if she had any books she could borrow. To be the head of the guild, Elhedril must already have had expert knowledge of her craft; surely she could have parted with a couple of her books for a few days.

Oh, well. Nothing else for it but to dig in and read as much as she could.

A few minutes after she had started, Aredhel realized something. The art of sericulture… was quite boring.

_Press on. You can’t help if you don’t have more information._

“Írissë?”

Aredhel started when she felt a hand light on her shoulder. She looked up from her sitting place to see her brother staring quizzically down at her. “Turukáno.” She raised an eyebrow, smiled slightly. “Have I taken a favorite reading spot of yours?”

This earned her a small, low noise that in her brother’s mouth qualified as the ghost of a laugh. “Have no fear. There are plenty of places here to sit. I just didn’t expect to see you here.” Turgon’s gray eyes flitted to the window, before returning to Aredhel’s face. “It’s a fine day; I would have thought you’d be outside.” His voice took on an edge of concern. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” Aredhel waved the book she had picked out, grimacing. “I just seem to have wandered into something completely outside my realm of expertise.”

Bemused, Turgon took a seat next to her by the window, his heavy robes rustling as he did so. He must have just come from his presence chamber, to still be wearing so many of them; Aredhel sometimes wondered how he could wear that topmost, heaviest layer without either wilting like a flower left out too long in the most oppressive heat of summer, or simply toppling over under its weight. Then again, her brother had always been stronger than his build suggested. “Dare I ask what it is that you’ve gotten yourself into?”

“Doing a favor for a friend, may whichever one of the Valar still cares to listen to us help me.”

She told him, in full, the situation in the sericulture guild. The story was a little while in the telling—Turgon didn’t know much more about silk production than did Aredhel, and she stumbled over some of the details, while Turgon stumbled over understanding of some of the explanation. He got the gist, though, and by the end was sporting the sort of look that he normally wore a few minutes before a headache came over him: that look of mingled infuriation and despair like he was having to physically restrain himself from shouting. Aredhel could sympathize.

“It’s been nearly fifty years,” he muttered, pinching the skin between his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger. His wedding ring flashed in the light. “Why are the heads of the guilds _still_ squabbling about whose hall was built where?”

Aredhel snorted. “I should think _you_ of all people would understand how long people can hold a grudge.”

“Yes, sister. Over things that actually _matter_. A category in which this does not fall.”

To that, Aredhel could only shrug. “They’re offended, I think. Mormeril is offended because glassmaking is an art so widely in demand that she thinks she rated better placement than she received. The other guild heads who didn’t get spots in the upper district are likely offended for much the same reason, regardless of whether they really rated such placement in the first place.”

“And you’re just—“ Turgon gestured awkwardly “—going to go talk to Mormeril about helping the sericulture guild?”

Nodding briskly, “When she returns from Nevrast, yes.” She grimaced. “I don’t think it’s going to be particularly _easy_ to get her to cooperate, but I think I should be able to convince her. If nothing else, constructing hothouses to the specifications the sericulture guild needs would be a prestigious contract.” Aredhel’s gaze strayed to the window. Far below, the city shone white in the afternoon light. Aredhel had to force herself to look down upon it and not see Tirion. “It would be a chance for the glassmakers’ guild to showcase their skills. Instead of a masterpiece for any individual guild member, it would be the masterpiece for the guild itself. Surely she must realize what an opportunity it would be.” When she looked back from the window, Turgon was smiling at her. Aredhel drew up her shoulders slightly. “What?”

“Nothing.” Turgon leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m just proud of you.”

Aredhel made a discomfited noise. “I’m only performing my duty.”

She didn’t tell him how ill-fitting it all felt. She didn’t tell him how small the Vale of Tumladen seemed already. How stale the air felt, sometimes, when she thought of the wide plains and forests they could have had instead, if they had not taken their people here. How she felt as if her skin was too small for her body, how she felt sometimes as if her skin would split at any moment. How she felt as if she wandered a city whose buildings were the ghosts of a vanished world. Aredhel was, after all, trying to carve out a place for herself here. It didn’t do to dwell on such things.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Artanis** —Galadriel  
>  **Írissë** —Aredhel  
>  **Maitimo** —Maedhros   
> **Turukáno** —Turgon 
> 
> **Elda** —‘Person of the Stars’ (Quenya); singular form of ‘Eldar’, a name first given to the Elves by Oromë when he found them by Cuiviénen, but later came to refer only to those who answered the summons to Aman and set out on the March, with those who chose to remain by Cuiviénen coming to be known as the Avari; the Eldar were composed of these groups: the Vanyar, Ñoldor (those among them who chose to go to Aman), and the Teleri (including their divisions: the Lindar, Falmari, Sindar and Nandor).  
>  **Helcaraxë** —the Grinding Ice (Quenya); the bridge of ice between Araman and Middle-Earth in the far north of the world. Morgoth and Ungoliant escaped to Middle-Earth by this road after destroying the Two Trees. Later, after the burning of the ships at Losgar, the Ñoldorin exiles abandoned on the other side of the sea traveled to Middle-Earth by this road at great risk to themselves.


End file.
